Zhukov:Y'know, some of us played all three games (multiple times even) and still considered the sequels to be huge improvements, both in gameplay and storytelling.

Or we liked somethings better in the gameplay and story departments and some things worse, because everyone has different personal preferences.

And also the extent to which Mass Effect 3 did allow us to resolve various ongoing issues (Geth vs. Quarian in particular), those resolutions could in turn make the ending more or less nihlisitc depending on what a given player did.

I played the first two when they were first released. I then rebought them to play before ME3. Out of all 3 ME games, ME3 is the only game i didnt replay. The ending wasnt that great and that killed the replay. But before that seeing the Rachi pissed me off as I killed the last one in ME3. Also by then all the stuff your character did was only shown in emails. In ME2 it wasnt like you could play as Wrex if you saved him in ME1. So i knew from ME2 that the whole "your choices change the world" was bullshit and cosmetic. Your choice whether to kill the council or save them in ME1 made no real difference to ME2. Your choice to destroy or save the base in ME2 made no difference to ME3. So for me, ME3 lost a lot what made me love ME3.

But for the debate, its no difference to any other game/movie/book that disapointed me in my life. ME3 went into its case and i sold it and moved on to another game. Some people act like ME3 raped and killed their wife and kids. Just really over the top.

Regardless of everything. The ME universe is still one which i would love to travel in again. Regardless of the ending, its the stories and characters that make it for me. An one boring ending wont change that for me.

I think the real reason that ME3's ending is still such an open wound is that the preceding series had spent five years building up to it. Everything was leading to this moment and when five years of emotional investment is met with disappointment it's not going to be forgotten quickly.

The reason I never finished the first game was the UI. Not the genre, not the difficulty not the gameplay (those I liked a lot).

Its UI was Dog Shit. Whoever made that (and the War Thunder UI) needs to change their line of work. They just suck epicly at it.Mass Effect 1's UI was a mess and something I would expect from a newbie Half Life 1 modder. Not from a AAA developer...

1) It was a good series of games. It lives long. You can rekindle discussion about FFVII or Doom after all this time too.2) The ending was controversial. Some love it, some hate it, nuff said.3) New people keep getting to the game. I only played it last year and when I did, I wanted to discuss it. Other people play the game for the first time today.4) It was a fucking moronic controversy in the first place. Of course these live the longest.

My main problem with ME1 was the atrocious Mako. I love that game, but every time it makes me go into the Mako I want to throw my controller out of the window and kill small furry woodland creatures (won't anyone think of the small woodland creatures?!)

ME2 and 3 had different tones and I do believe they dropped the ball on the ending, but I really wish we could all focus on the real problem with this game series instead. KILL THE MAKO!

I really wish people will stop saying some found the ending amazing, it's a cop out and is full of the usual mass media "fair and balanced" bullshit where they always find someone "on the otherside" no matter how wrong it is. The ending is terrible it's indisputable, it's not surprising that people like the ending, I like the Super Mario Bros. movie but it's still terrible. Mass Effects ending is still an illogical convoluted mess that tried to staple reasoning on to mad gods, offer a "big" decision when one wasn't needed and ended up with a hook to the next game that is more poorly written than some of the stuff I wrote in diapers.

It's plain and simple what it should of been, no fancy crucible rewriting the directive of reapers, it's a weapon plain and simple, you don't know what you do until the AI informs you. No more magical star child informing you of everything about the reapers and they're stupid directive, just a simple AI saying hey what you built will do this. And this weapon is a super nova bomb, there is a simple binary choice set it off at full power destroying all of the reapers and everyone in the Sol system as well, or set it off at lower power, potentially escaping, and causing the people in Sol to survive but failing destroy all of the reapers (but, they'd retreat to recuperate their numbers). And after that there'd be a Dragon Age Origins style reveal of the victory celebration revealing if Shepard survived (if you have to include galactic readiness make that be the factor that decides it).

I know I can't be the only one who vastly preferred the first Mass Effect's gameplay to the second. I liked the Mako, I liked the inventory management, I liked the shooting! I was more upset by ME2 than ME3, though admittedly ME2 convinced me to not bother with ME3, and as a result I only only actually know ME3 from the Spoiler Warning season, so that might explain why I don't really have much in the way of strong feelings.

Shamus, I think your analysis of this is deeply flawed because it considers some fringe components to be serious "sides" of the discussion and omits perhaps the most important part of this entire thing:

The most important part of the ME3 fiasco is that Bioware made specific promises about the ending of the game and what it would include. Bioware made it clear with direct statements that Mass Effect 3 would both answer all the outstanding questions and would NOT include a simple "choose A B or C ending". Bioware proceeded to put in a "choose A B or C" ending anyway, what's more many of the biggest questions in the series were not answered. Bioware released an app that was "behind the scenes" of ME3 and in that app they had the devs saying "well, we decided not to answer a lot of the big questions because they work better as mysteries and give us material for later games in the franchise". Add to this some leaked information about how Bioware actually had no plans for the ending until late in the process, and how what they did was inspired by an adolescent fan whose fan-letter got taped to a director's door, and you can see why there was a riot.

It should also be noted that changing the game genera in this case is a little different than your presenting it. Mass Effect (the original) worked as a self-contained story. It was also a game in a very niche genera as you pointed out. The problem isn't so much that Bioware decided to make a sci-fi shooter, but that they made it "Mass Effect 2" basically claiming that an entirely different kind of game, with entirely different core principles (as you pointed out) was "more of the same" following the first game. Basically Bioware should have created an entirely new franchise for that, and left a game a lot of people fell in love with alone rather than ruining it by stamping a "2" on something entirely different and then claiming anyone who complained about this was being unfair.

When it comes to that transition, also consider that it's not really fair or accurate to say that the first "Mass Effect" as any kind of an underperformer, or that it's criticisms by the shoot-bro crowd were especially relevant. After all it succeeded well enough where they wanted the franchise name for other games. It could have succeeded just fine where it was even by AAA standards but basically EA/Bioware wanted more money, and figured it could piggyback off of the success of the first game by using a title people loved, while otherwise making an entirely separate kind of game and using some of the same story elements and lore. This did indeed move more units, but it also meant that all those people who came to the game because of the first one felt rightfully betrayed, as they were being exploited, probably to form a "safe" foundation if for whatever reason they didn't draw in a whole new market.

The same can also be said about "Dragon Age 2" to an extent, which also pours fuel onto this fire. A game that was specifically created and hyped as a series acting as "the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate" and using similar sensibilities was turned into a brawler. Not just a brawler, but a lazy one, where you see loading screens suggesting tactics conceived back when the game was still going to be a real RPG (like suggesting having fighters block for mages in a party formation).

I'll also say that I don't think the ending of "Mass Effect 3" went over anyone's head. The problem with the ending is that it didn't fit with the rest of the series, which even in the first game involved a hero who pretty much resolves no-win scenarios. Furthermore the whole organic vs. technological argument and the "inevitability of conflict" makes no sense if you subverted the whole logic by say bringing peace between the Geth and their creators... or even just sided with The Geth for that matter.

The actual reason for the ending is pretty much to level the universe, so they have a blank slate for franchise potential. Basically with the way they ended things with exploding gates and the like they can argue that anything survived or didn't survive, and feel free to pretty much ignore the entire trilogy in moving forward with the franchise... which was the bottom line because a series intended to end as a trilogy at most got turned into a franchise by corporate suits who insist on milking anything and everything dry. The ending is crap for fans, but pretty much perfect for developers who want a relatively blank slate to work from.

Rather than a lot of separate voices "talking over each others heads" there are disagreements, but pretty much everyone agrees that the ending was garbage, and that Bioware should create a new one, more in keeping with the spirit of the series. Not to mention that any such ending needs to be done so it is not simple a "choose A, B, or C" option because Bioware promised it wouldn't be one. What's more any such ending and the events leading up to it, should resolve a lot of the bigger questions leading up to that. If Bioware wants to do more "Mass Effect" after achieving that, more power to them, but the whole "Line" is united in the stance that Bioware needs to keep it's promises in regards to the trilogy and give the story of Shepard a proper ending fitting the character and the spirit in which it has been operating.

This is just plain wrong. I was really invested in the games and not only did I think that they got better and better with each game, I though that the gameplay especially got better and better. The third game in the series was awesome and lived up to all of my expectations and the sole reason I got so angry was because of the horrible ending. On a side note, I didn't think that the ending to Bioshock was bad at all. Sure, it may have peaked with Ryan but the ending wasn't a disappointment.

I was perfectly fine with the ending given by the extended cut and when that came out I could finally put the series as one of my most loved game series ever made. The reason why it's still so fresh in my mind is that it was clear that after making this amazing universe and continuing the grand story they decided to ship the game before they had finished the ending. It's like staying in a five-star hotel and having a wonderful morning but when you get your breakfast it turns out they just shoved a bunch of eggs up a pigs arse rather than having me wait for my bacon and eggs. Sure they took the time to cook it up later but nothing will make me forget that image.

I'm also very annoyed at the DLC situation (The citadel DLC was perfect in every way though) as Javik should obviously have been part of the base game and the Leviathan DLC was a bit too important to have been introduced after I had already finished the game.

Zhukov:Y'know, some of us played all three games (multiple times even) and still considered the sequels to be huge improvements, both in gameplay and storytelling.

Although the "Human's Are Special" undertones can admittedly fuck right off.

If nothing else, I agree with your final point of a whole bunch of different people wanting a whole bunch of different things.

This. The difference between playing the first game and second reminds me of the gameplay difference between Bioshock and Infinite. Bioshock wanted to be played like System Shock, but through enemies and weapons at you like it was a shooter. But it did not have fluid shooter controls and felt incredibly heavy and clunky. Infinite fixed that by adding swift movement, a proper aiming system, and the best revolver since anything in Red Dead Redemption. Mass Effect 1 is so goddamn hard to play during the combat sections because the combat is not really deigned for a shooter. They should have kept the turn-based thing from KOTOR. Or got rid of a lot of the RPG elements which did sweet fuck all like the ability to buy for less and sell for more at shops, or the inventory system. I never bothered to sell things (Omni-gel like a mofo!), and simply swapped my weapon of choice to a better one when I got it from killing an enemy. , and particularly 3, completely fixed that. I'd still argue that the games are Role Playing Games, since you play as Shepard, and guide how her (Never played the games as MaleShep. Dat Jennifer Hale) character develops.

I will admit, I was a bit miffed when Bioware said the ending wouldn't be "Select one of three options" and it turned out to be "Select one of two options. A third is available if you did some correct stuff. Also, a fourth was added which shouldn't have been added considering how little effort was put into it". But story-wise, I enjoyed the ending. I thought it was well done. I wish the DLC, particularly the water one which I can't remember what it was called, was part of the main game, but it is what it is. EA aren't ever going to change until their company crumbles around them.

The Extended Cut helped greatly... but it's just hard to forget how bummed out you were at the time. It's like being told you're going to Disney world, only instead you wind up at a funeral and are told it was all a joke. Sure you can go to Disney world later, but it was heartbreaking and disappointing the first time and it's just flat-out hard to forget those feelings or disassociate them from the series.

I'll say it like this: I bought every Collector's Edition, bought every DLC, played every game multiple times, and when I got to ME3's final moments... I had no desire to ever go back to that series and see that ending ever again or buy any of the DLC that followed. To this day, I'm still waiting for a sale on Leviathan and Omega (which sells for more than the game itself does).

Charcharo:The reason I never finished the first game was the UI. Not the genre, not the difficulty not the gameplay (those I liked a lot).

Its UI was Dog Shit. Whoever made that (and the War Thunder UI) needs to change their line of work. They just suck epicly at it.Mass Effect 1's UI was a mess and something I would expect from a newbie Half Life 1 modder. Not from a AAA developer...

At the time, one would not have considered Bioware to be AAA. Both Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect began their lives and spent most of their development before being acquired by EA. I suspect you'd find the budget for either game would be remarkably low if indeed it were possible to actually get such information.

Serialized narrative is rarely done in video games and done well even less. Most games fall into 3 catagories:

1) the episodic: Few games do this anymore, but it's a standard: every game is it's own story set in the same universe, yet is devoid of much world building. Games like Mario, Metroid, or the Batman Arkham series might have some shared connections between games, but are treated with seclusion from each other and as such, the buildup and investment isn't there, so a bad ending doesn't feel like quite the waste.

2) The reset: every game starts over, even if the character types are reused, it's always a new Link, a new Final Fantasy or a new Disgaea. Again, less attachment, less problem when something goes wrong.

3) the running narrative: Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Metal gear. The games with stories that keep us coming back for more to see what happens next. Things build, get convoluted, but keep interesting if you can keep up. Thing is, these rarely try and end. Metal Gear 4 and God of War 3 produced finales to their stories, but on the other hand Resident Evil kept going until it fell apart, and Mortal Kombat needed a do over.

So with most games not trying to a continuing story or pushing it well past anyone's interest, ME3 was something to be cherished. A multi-game story that built to a climactic ending before we got sick of it or it had to be forcibly extended. A story we could be hyped for while not being held back by other games' need to not cut off a sequel. I mean, after seeing the final battle with Umbrella in Resident Evil largely not happen, or resigning ourselves to never seeing the "final" battle With shao Kahn in Mortal Kombat, or are still waiting for all the plot threads to be tied up in Kingdom Hearts, this was huge.

If they go back to ME1 and what made it great I'll probably dive back in. But I didn't buy ME3 because of ME2. ME2 felt like them narrowing their vision to practical tunnel vision on shepard and his/her "destiny" and not the cool universe they setup in ME1. After hearing the BS surrounding ME3 I knew my choice to hold off on getting it was justified so I'll just be happy that ME1 at least satisfied all my video gaming wants in a way that none have since then. I hope they don't go triple AAA balloning budget and make what ever next ME like the Halo series where they've gone beyond beating a dead and once oh so profitable horse, to the point of mockery. This entire article has actually drudged up all my old feelings on this series and how it should of been... now I'm sad again. Thanks EA, Thanks Shamus.

ME2 delivered this really well. Among other things, depending on what you decided, the entire crew could be saved or lost.

With ME3, no matter what you did you got the same outcome. Your choices were all pointless except locally.

Without that promise of your choices making a difference, well, the ending would have been the ending (and a reasonable one). As it was, it just took your entire decision tree, choked it off, and discarded it. Obviously that happens sometimes in life, but it went against the promise of the series.

The way I look at it is that people had invested themselves so much into this series that for it to end on a sour note it hurt them beyond repair. Then you have the people that thought the ending was good and still have much enthusiasm for the ME. Now we have two polar opposite sides with a burning enthusiasm for the game and thus the debate doesn't die. Though most can be said with other works of fiction that people tend to over invest themselves in.

I'll always say the first Mass Effect game had a ton of potential. None of the systems they put in place worked very well, but if they could figure them out, they could truly make something incredible.

Unfortunately, they never did. While I still very much enjoyed the second and third games (Ending aside), I'll always feel like there was a missed opportunity there.

Zorg Machine:It's like staying in a five-star hotel and having a wonderful morning but when you get your breakfast it turns out they just shoved a bunch of eggs up a pigs arse rather than having me wait for my bacon and eggs. Sure they took the time to cook it up later but nothing will make me forget that image.

That is both the greatest and most amusing analogy I've ever heard in regards to this situation.

My problem with the ending was the ending was a rocks fall everybody dies ending. That the writers were convinced was actually happy. Forget that the Mass Relays should have wiped out every solar system they were in. The galaxy's economy depended on trade between worlds and without the Mass Relays that was impossible, so the entire fleet was going to starve to death.

Therumancer:Shamus, I think your analysis of this is deeply flawed because it considers some fringe components to be serious "sides" of the discussion and omits perhaps the most important part of this entire thing:

The most important part of the ME3 fiasco is that Bioware made specific promises about the ending of the game and what it would include. Bioware made it clear with direct statements that Mass Effect 3 would both answer all the outstanding questions and would NOT include a simple "choose A B or C ending". Bioware proceeded to put in a "choose A B or C" ending anyway, what's more many of the biggest questions in the series were not answered. Bioware released an app that was "behind the scenes" of ME3 and in that app they had the devs saying "well, we decided not to answer a lot of the big questions because they work better as mysteries and give us material for later games in the franchise". Add to this some leaked information about how Bioware actually had no plans for the ending until late in the process, and how what they did was inspired by an adolescent fan whose fan-letter got taped to a director's door, and you can see why there was a riot.

Umm, do you have statistical analysis on hand to say which parts of the discussion are "fringe" and which ones are "serious"? Or are you just picking the parts that you think are "most important" and saying the article is flawed for not happening to mention the one issue you care most about?

And then you launch into how the most important problem is that they broke some promises that they made in some press statements? I'm going to make my own unfounded statistical statement and say that the VAST majority of players of Mass Effect 3 didn't read BioWares press statements or otherwise follow information about the development of the game, so, yeah, I find the idea that this is somehow the "most important part" a bit funny.

wastaz:My main problem with ME1 was the atrocious Mako. I love that game, but every time it makes me go into the Mako I want to throw my controller out of the window and kill small furry woodland creatures (won't anyone think of the small woodland creatures?!)

I know this is strange, but i actually really liked the Mako, with his bumpy random physics and suspension. When i got to the point of being able to control it well, i found all the mako sections a joy, my favorite is the one on noveria.

Mass Effect 3 Ending. Never has so much ended in so little. No boss fight. No epilogue. All your choices result in nothing but a color swap. Add a nice thick layer of resented DLC. Like making love to a woman and at the climax of the third sweaty round she suddenly grabs your quad and gives it a savage twist, then wordlessly departs, leaving you unfinished.

I think that this article was a little shallow for such a big topic. Note that it ignores Biowares conduct, both before the game was released and afterwards, which infuriated many fans. The last point is a good example. It is true that there are many different arguments about the ending and disagreements about why the ending was bad, or how bad it was. However, these arguments, though different, are not separate. They all come from a single source, the poor quality of writing in the ending.

To be honest I think that the reason this argument has refused to die is that no one at Bioware, either as individuals or representing the company, has come out and revealed definitively what actually happened and explained it, even if they did so to defend the ending. The closest we got was a quote from the Penny Arcade forum, which was quickly hushed up. As a result the issue has had no resolution or closure. There has been no dialogue, and fans are still in the dark about what actually happened and why.

I don't think I ever actually voiced my opinion on ME3's ending before, at least not in great detail, because I felt like other people had done it more justice than I could, but this particular bit reminded me of one of my larger hang-ups on player criticisms of the ending:

Some people really thought that after three games and hundreds of hours of gameplay, they were entitled to a happy (or at least non-nihilistic) ending. Others didn't need a happy ending, they just wanted the main character (and maybe their love interest) to survive. Other people didn't care about Shepard, they just wanted to know how things turned out for the rest of the galaxy after making all those supposedly important choices. Everybody wanted something different and almost nobody got what they wanted, so we have this huge angry crowd all asking for different things.

I am seated firmly in that third camp where I did not care about Shepard at all. I think caring about a blank slate players are meant to project onto as a vehicle to explore the game is absurd when so many more interesting and fleshed-out characters exist. Shepard may have been the center of attention in the game's universe, but that was only to provide players with a front row seat to every important event, and a personal audience with the most significant characters - that's just how protagonists in these kinds of games are.

Seeing a character like that die at the conclusion of the trilogy felt very natural and I wasn't upset by it in the slightest. Once they'd released the free extended cut DLCs I was perfectly satisfied with seeing how the rest of the universe turned out and I moved on.

One of the things that bugged me the most about the ME3 ending wasn't just the "choose what instagram filter gets put over the final cinematic", or "your choise in romantic interest ultimately has no effect on the game's ending" - no...

It was that for what it sort of tried to do - it didn't.

IIRC one of the writers for the game leaked that the head writer wrote the entire ending himself - not letting the team vet or re-work he'd written, as was otherwise the norm to ensure that everything fit together. Supposedly the head writer was big on morally grey endings, endings that weren't all black/white or good/evil. Ok, so he wanted some endings that presented something like that...

And we sure got that, right?

Blue ending: Shepard takes control of the reapers. humanity gains a massive new resources, lots of ancient knowledge and tech... but do we get to see the effects of that in the epilogue? What if Tali was your love interest, could male-Shep use a Geth as a kind of proxy to still be with her... or any other love interest? Or not, if Shepard completely looses his/her humanity from the process? This ending raises all these questions, but answers none of them.

Green ending: Like the above - so many questions, hardly any answers. How would the Quarians respond to suddenly merging with the geth? There should definetely be two VERY different reactions depending on whether they made friends or wiped out most of the geth. Again what about the love interest?

Red ending: if anything, this ones raises the least amount of questions - and yet... what if you'd had the Geth and Quarians make friends? How would they respond to gaining such allies, then losing them again? What about EDI and Joker? How does Joker react to EDI getting killed?

I could, in all honesty, have fully accepted the game's ending - if these questions had been answered. But they were not.

I get that the lead writer wanted an ending that said "in war you can't always win 100%" - fine - but the god damn show me what is lost and what is won, don't leave me wondering what happened.

And whoever came up with the idea of the starchild should just crawl up his rear and stay there - because I'm revoking his license to do anything creative, permanently.

Zombie Badger:I think the real reason that ME3's ending is still such an open wound is that the preceding series had spent five years building up to it. Everything was leading to this moment and when five years of emotional investment is met with disappointment it's not going to be forgotten quickly.

That sums it up for me. I was really invested in my Shepard, her choices, her love life, and basically everything that I did in those games. To find out that none of it mattered, that my Shepard ended up the same as all the others, and that nothing I did actually mattered, was a real kick to the face. All that investment, time, and energy, gone.

That, and the fact that BioWare promised this exact thing would not happen. No A,B, or C ending, and yet that's exactly what we got.

Anticlimactic, stupid, tries to fool you into thinking it's deeper than it is, emotionally manipulative - any of these describe the ending perfectly. I didn't like ME1 that much - the story didn't do it for me, I already played it in a little game called KotOR. ME2 I adored and it retroactively made me like ME1 all the more. Some build ups from 1 were nicely paid off and there were new build ups for 3... that didn't pay off. The ending was just the icing on a cake. The Extended Cut made it just underwhelming instead of offensively horrible, which I'll take. Still, no Mass Effect 4 for me, no sirree.

Shamus Young:The first Mass Effect was a slow-paced, high-concept sci-fi opera. ... The humans seemed kind of small and unimportant in comparison. ... By the third game, all of that had changed.

I'm not sure what game you played, but by the end of ME1 Shepard leads a human army against Souvereign and his Geth, and is victorious. So humanity stopped being small and unimportant by the very end of the first game, and Shepard arguably became one of the most important (though not yet THE most important) persons in the galaxy.

In the same vein the game(s) stop being episodic, slow-paced and high-concept (whatever you mean by that) in the Virmire mission, even before the end of ME1. It's half story-driven, with the reapers first taking note of Shepard, and half driven by conflicts in the relationship of the main character with the crew, notably Wrex and Ashley/Kaidan.

So most of the 'changes between games' were completed by the end of the first game.

Which is simply good storytelling. The nearer you get to the climax, the more the worldbuilding needs to be phased out into the background, or at least relate to the struggle of the main characters. And so I fail to see a conflict between 'old guard' ME1 and 'new bunch' ME2+ players in that regard.